While the Apple Watch continues to dominate the smartwatch market, other manufacturers have moved to different form factors like the Oura Ring, Whoop Activity Tracker, and more recently, the Fitbit Air. A common thread I see in reviews and social media commentary is how these screenless trackers are better than a smartwatch because people don’t want another screen to steal their attention.

For years, I’ve been using Apple Watch as a device that helps me maintain my focus, while still being connected to the things that are important to me. So I figured it’d be useful to go over ways you can configure your Apple Watch to help encourage focus, and not distraction.

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Disable Sounds and Haptics

It’s been a while since I’ve set up an Apple Watch as new, but I believe the default setting is for sounds to be enabled when you set up your watch. I actually like the Apple Watch sounds, but I’m often finding myself in environments where I don’t want my watch making sounds. You can turn on Silent Mode on the Watch at:

Settings App > Sound & Haptics > Silent Mode

Or from Control Center on the Watch

Or from the Watch app on your iPhone:

Watch app > Scroll Down to Sound & Haptics

Gentle haptic feedback via the Taptic Engine has been a unique hallmark of the Apple Watch from the beginning. It’s actually the reason a lot of us keep our watches permanently in silent mode. I think my favorite use case is actually the alarm, where the watch will gently vibrate to wake you up, without disturbing anyone else in the room.

But if you don’t want your watch vibrating at all, this can also be totally disabled in the Sound & Haptics setting. Tap on the Sound & Haptics section, and toggle them off.

Disable the Notifications Indicator

If you really want to cut down on distractions, you can disable the “red dot” notifications indicator on your watch face. Disabling the indicator removes the “something happened” temptation and you can check your watch’s notifications on your own time.

From the Watch app on iPhone: Notifications > Notifications Indicator

From the Settings app: Notifications > Notifications Indicator

Configure Your Notifications

I’ll readily admit, notification management is somewhat lacking on watchOS. By default, when you set up an Apple Watch it will mirror the notification settings from your iPhone, and most people leave it at that.

You can configure your Apple Watch’s notification settings in the Watch app on your iPhone.

Watch app > Notifications

The notification settings are broadly divided into two sections, one for native watchOS apps and one for iOS apps whose notifications are mirrored on your Apple Watch.

Native watchOS apps, like the built-in Apple apps, can have more granular settings for notifications, but most won’t. For most apps, you’ll have two options:

Mirror my iPhone – Mirrors the notification setting from your phone for that app. If you get notifications for that app on your phone, then you also will on the watch.

Custom – Under the custom option, you change a few settings for that app:

• Allow Notifications – leave notifications on
• Send to Notification Center – silently deliver notifications to your watch. They’ll show up in Notification Center on the watch when you swipe down from the top of the watch face.
• Notifications Off – Turns off notifications for that app.

Underneath those options, you can toggle sound on or off for that notification (assuming you have sound on for your Apple Watch).

The Notification Grouping options give you more granular control over how notifications are grouped in Notification Center.

• Off – Each notification will be displayed individually; no grouping is applied.
• Automatically – Uses information from an app to intelligently group its notifications, depending on how the developer has set up their app. For example, in Messages, notifications may be grouped by individual contacts or group threads.
• By App – All notifications are grouped into a single group for a given app.

Configuring Key Apps

To tone down notification overload, you’ll want to configure a few key apps and settings.

In the “Mirror iPhone Alerts From” section of the Apple Watch app (under Notifications), turn off everything. Or at least, everything that’s not actually important to you.

If you use the Apple Mail app, turn off notifications for all of your non-critical accounts. (Watch app > Notifications > Mail)

If you use the Apple Calendar app, turn off the calendars you don’t care about. For me, that’s under (Watch app > Notifications > Calendar). From here you can configure calendar settings for all accounts, or more granularly in the “Calendars” section. For example, I turn off all calendar notifications except for my iCloud account.

If you’re not using the Apple Watch Fitness software, go into the Activity app settings, and turn off all notifications. That way you won’t get things like reminders to stand every hour or Activity challenge notifications.

In the Clock app, you can turn off “Push Alerts from iPhone”. By default, if you set a timer or alarm on your phone, you’ll also get notified on your watch. I find this to be incredibly useful, but if you really want to keep your Apple Watch silent, this is a setting you’ll want to disable.

For Apple Maps users, you can turn off notifications altogether, or, more helpfully, turn off alerts for specific navigation modes, like driving or walking directions, if you don’t use the Maps app for those activities.

Focus Modes

Focus modes on iPadOS and iOS are really their own topic, but since they sync with your Apple Watch, they are worth mentioning here.

If you haven’t used them before, Focus modes are kind of like profiles that you can set up on your tablet or phone that let you define certain settings, like which apps can notify you. Apple sets up a few logical defaults here, but you can define your own.

For example, I have a work focus mode that automatically turns on during my normal working hours, and silences notifications from all but the apps I care about and the apps I use for work. You can also filter which contacts can get ahold of you while you’re in this focus mode, and that setting can extend across multiple Messaging apps, not just the built-in one.

Focus modes can be configured to activate based on different criteria, like time of day or launching a specific app. You can also toggle Focus modes directly from Control Center on your watch.

Conclusion

If you’re willing to put just a little time into it, an Apple Watch doesn’t have to be just another screen you have to manage. It can actually be a device that can help you be more present and in the moment while still staying connected to the things and people that are most important to you.